SYDNEY, May 9, 2016 -- Epsilon®, a global leader in creating connections between people and brands, today released the Customer Experience Maturity Report in partnership with Econsultancy, a global research firm. The study surveyed 350 client-side (58% of total respondents) and supply-side (42% of total respondents) marketing, digital and ecommerce professionals based in Australia and New Zealand to explore regional maturity-level for customer experience (CX). The research was collected via an online survey of Econsultancy's user base between February 2016 and March 2016.

The research found that the majority of both client-side (53%) and supply-side (61%) respondents rate their companies as being 'not very advanced' in their approach to customer experience. While client-side respondents felt 'complexity of customer experience' (31%) was the biggest barrier preventing their organizations from improving the customer experience, supply-side respondents identified 'lack of overall strategy/vision' (41%) as the primary hindrance.

The majority of respondents felt that optimizing internal collaboration between multi-disciplined teams and using data to better understand behaviors were the most important factors in delivering a great customer experience over the coming year.

Jefrey Gomez, Managing Director, Asia Pacific at Econsultancy, said: "This research reveals that the complexities of delivering a relevant and consistent customer experience across all channels and touchpoints are significant. However, forward-looking organisations are making strides by focusing on three key ingredients: technology, data and ownership."

"There are tremendous opportunities for brands to enhance customer experience delivery and achieve greater CX maturity," said Michael Kustreba, Managing Director of Epsilon, Asia Pacific. "Now is the time to address these shortcomings because consumers are expecting more from brands. The good news is that there are valuable insights from data, technology and proven methodologies that organizations can adopt to help them improve their customer experience delivery."

Additional findings include:

CX will continue to be key differentiator over the next five years

More than three in five (63%) client-side respondents indicated that the primary ways they will differentiate themselves from competitors over the next five years will be through providing better customer service, cultivating the digital customer experience or enhancing the digital customer experience, among others. Most of the remaining (33%) client-side respondents stated they will use product-related initiatives to differentiate themselves.

Customer experience is more advanced when it is the responsibility of the entire organization

Survey data showed that all respondents felt the responsibility for customer experience sits across a mix of different departments. 20% of client-side respondents believed it was the responsibility of the whole organization, versus 9% of supply-side respondents. When responses were segmented by level of self-declared CX maturity, the effect of different approaches becomes clearer. In half of the 'advanced' companies, responsibility for customer experience is either shared across the organization (34%) or resides in a dedicated customer experience team (16%). For companies rating themselves as 'not very advanced' or 'immature,' responsibility for customer experience is far more likely to lie within a mixture of different departments (40% versus 18%) or the marketing department (18% versus 5%).

Responsibility for CX is allocated, but budget is often not

Marketers reported that only 7% of companies in the region have a single, dedicated budget for understanding the customer journey, while an additional 27% have a dedicated budget split across different departments. While most companies assign responsibility for customer experience, they are far less likely to allocate budget specifically for understanding the customer journey.

Understanding the customer journey is about driving business and helping customers

Survey respondents indicated that three of the major benefits of understanding the customer journey are business-related: increasing customer lifetime value/loyalty, driving revenue and profitability and improving relevance and effectiveness of marketing communications were all rated as major benefits of understanding the customer journey by both client-side and supply-side marketers.

New channels and innovations are relatively unimportant to marketers

The study found that organizations are less enthusiastic about improving customer experience through creative innovations and new channels, with 27% of client-side respondents considering experimentation with channel-specific creative 'not important' for delivering a great customer experience.

'Advanced' companies are more likely to make improvements using insights

20% of marketers surveyed rate their companies' ability to make improvements and changes based on insights as 'poor' or 'very poor.' 'Advanced' organizations are nearly five times more likely to rate themselves as 'excellent' or 'good' versus the rest.

Both qualitative and quantitative insights are used to inform understanding of the customer journey

According to client-side respondents, quantitative data is the most important tool for insight on the customer journey, followed by web analytics and CRM data. Organizations who rated themselves as 'advanced' in terms of CX maturity are more likely to use user experience (UX) analysis techniques like touchpoint mapping, UX audits and heatmaps in addition to more traditional quantitative and qualitative insights.

Return on investment is being measured in traditional ways

The two most popular ways companies measure the return on investment for their customer experience initiatives are very similar to the ways in which most companies measure marketing efforts: increased conversion rates (45%) and increased sales (43%).

Epsilon is a global leader in creating connections between people and brands. An all-encompassing global marketing company, we harness the power of rich data, groundbreaking technologies, engaging creative and transformative ideas to get the results our clients require. Recognized by Ad Age as the #1 World's Largest CRM/Direct Marketing Network, #1 Largest U.S. Agency from All Disciplines and #1 Largest U.S. Mobile Marketing Agency, Epsilon employs over 7,000 associates in 70 offices worldwide. Epsilon is an Alliance Data company. Epsilon International is an operating unit of Epsilon, with local offices in Australia, Mainland China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Singapore, U.K., France, Germany and Ireland. For more information, visit epsilon.com, follow us on Twitter @EpsilonAPAC,LinkedIn or email to apac-info@epsilon.com.

About Econsultancy

Econsultancy's mission is to help its customers achieve excellence in digital business, marketing and ecommerce through research, training and events.

Founded in 1999, Econsultancy has offices in New York, London and Singapore.

Econsultancy is used by over 600,000 professionals every month. Subscribers get access to research, market data, best practice guides, case studies and elearning -- all focused on helping individuals and enterprises get better at digital.

The subscription is supported by digital transformation services including digital capability programmes, training courses, skills assessments and audits. We train and develop thousands of professionals each year as well as running events and networking that bring the Econsultancy community together around the world.